The Sports Factor

Former High Court judge, Justice Ian Callinan has conducted a comprehensive inquiry into the circumstances leading to the outbreak of equine influenza in Australia, which the Federal government is now considering. How is it likely to change the equestrian sport scene?

Transcript

This transcript was typed from a recording of the program. The ABC cannot guarantee its complete accuracy because of the possibility of mishearing and occasional difficulty in identifying speakers.

Mick O'Regan: Hello, and welcome to The Sports Factor here on ABC Radio National. I'm Mick O'Regan.

Let's start with some good news. On 4th April this year, Australia's Chief Veterinary Officer, Dr Andy Carroll, issued a press release that declared Australia now met the conditions to be declared free of equine influenza.

And that's a relief, because since September last year, anyone involved with horses has been living with the repercussions of an outbreak of the disease.

NEWS MONTAGE

Mick O'Regan: The Howard government moved quickly to appoint retired High Court Judge, Ian Callinan, to conduct a comprehensive inquiry into how the disease got into the country, and the adequacy of our quarantine and bio-security systems.

Six months, and 80,000 documents later, Commissioner Callinan has presented his final report to the Federal Agriculture Minister, Tony Burke.

Now the Minister is considering the final volume and is yet to discuss it publicly.

When he does, there'll be plenty of people listening, as there are some very big questions to be answered: What caused the outbreak? Whose fault is it? And who should pick up the tab for the losses suffered by industry participants both big and small?

Now at the small end, are people like stock horse breeder and trainer, Adrianne Bowden, from Crabbes Creek, in the Northern Rivers district of New South Wales.

Adrianne Bowden: We have a 100-acre property and on that property I breed and train Australian stock horses. I also train horses for other people, young horse handling, and I'm also an accredited Australian stock horse coach.

Mick O'Regan: Now tell me about when you found out about equine influenza.

Adrianne Bowden: I heard about it through the News on the radio and that kind of thing. It was a bit of a shock to think that something like that could happen and to impose the national standstill was just outrageous; I'd never heard of anything like that.

Mick O'Regan: Give me a sense of what it meant in practical terms for your business, that national standstill when basically if you had a horse, you had to keep it and not move it.

Adrianne Bowden: Yes, that's right. On our property we also run a produce store, and obviously there's horse people driving onto and off our property because we do deliveries. My first course of action on Monday morning was to ring the DPI and explain my situation to them and ask them their suggested recommendations. And which they said to me, 'Well, basically you need to shut the gate.'

Mick O'Regan: That's it?

Adrianne Bowden: And I said, 'Well how do I run my business?' and they said, 'Well, you don't.' And I'm like, OK, good start.

Mick O'Regan: So from one day to the next Adrianne, you basically had an income source and the next day you had no income source?

Adrianne Bowden: Exactly. Yes. And to lock down, because we had horses on the property, I had other people's horses on the property, they couldn't come and visit their horses on the property, we didn't have people, so yes, straight away we just stopped trading virtually for two, three weeks, until we knew what sort of areas the horse flu impacted on, and what their protocols were. So basically we did absolutely nothing for three weeks, which meant zero income but it also meant zero socialising. I couldn't hang out with my horsey friends and that kind of thing, couldn't go down to a pub and have a chat about it, we were pretty much property-bound. No deliveries, nothing, so we just sat here twiddling our thumbs wondering what the hell's going on.

Mick O'Regan: Now for that income that you lost, I mean I understand that the government had a compensation arrangement going, did you qualify to get some financial assistance?

Adrianne Bowden: Yes, I did, and I qualified for a reasonable amount of assistance, and I was most grateful for that. It helped to pay bills; obviously running a business and that, we're running on accounts, and obviously cashflow was needed to pay those accounts, so if cashflow stops, then there's just absolutely no way to pay those accounts. So the assistance that I got, I got a wage subsidy assistance which went towards the business to pay bills and I also got a business assistance grant, which just went straight towards the business to pay bills as well.

Mick O'Regan: Have you followed, Adrianne, the progress of the Callinan inquiry?

Adrianne Bowden: My understanding of it is to date that the Callinan inquiry has finished, and they've released their findings to the government, and the government won't release those findings to the general public until they've reviewed it all, which to me sounds a little bit strange, but that's apparently what's happening.

Mick O'Regan: Indeed. And the Minister, Tony Burke, as you say, he's been given the report by Justice Callinan and then will consider it, and then implement those decisions once he's taken a decision. But just as far as you're concerned, as a small operator within an area that has some very large industry and businesses as we'll hear, namely the racing and the thoroughbred breeding industries, what are you hoping that this whole process will eventuate in? What outcome are you after?

Adrianne Bowden: Well me as a small operator, I mean I guess the horse industry as a whole is divided like the 80-20 rules, so 80% of the people in the horse industry are involved in what they call the pleasure horse industry, and 20% are involved in the racing industry, but that turns around 80% of the finance in the horse industry is obviously related to the racehorse industry. So I mean the government obviously will be looking to the racing industry, because that's 80% of the money, but it only represents 20% of the voice. So it's kind of a little bit difficult for the pleasure horse industry to get a bit of a serious voice heard, but like the fact of the matter is, and this is unchanged, is that horse flu was brought into this country by a vaccinated, microchipped horse.

It happened to be a racehorse, so now there's lots of talk around about introducing this horse levy, which is $100 per head to cover the government costing, which is OK if you've got one or two, but if you've got 20, it's a fairly significant investment into something that we didn't cause, we didn't bring it in, we had nothing to do with it kind of thing, and then we have to pay for the problems that have been caused.

Mick O'Regan: If that sort of financial burden is imposed on you, and there's an 'if' associated with that, would you think of taking some sort of legal action for compensation?

Adrianne Bowden: Yes that would be nice, but I mean realistically, who's got the money to do that?

Mick O'Regan: Who indeed. Stock horse breeder Adrianne Bowden.

At the big end of the equestrian financial scene is of course the racing industry, which argues that the cost of the equine influenza outbreak can only be measured in hundreds of millions of dollars, if not more. While acknowledging it's necessary for the details of the Callinan Report to be released by the Minister, Peter V'Landys, the Chief Executive of Racing New South Wales, has no complaints about the course of the inquiry to date.

Peter V'Landys: Look, we've been very happy with the process. We asked for an independent review, we believe the right man was selected in Mr Callinan, you can't get better than a High Court Judge. He has given everyone the opportunity to be heard; we're eagerly awaiting his review.

Mick O'Regan: Indeed. What were the main points in your submission that you put to the Callinan Inquiry?

Peter V'Landys: In essence, we just want to know how equine influenza got out into the community, who was responsible. It caused chaos to the horse industry and in particular thoroughbred racing, and it cost us in the hundreds of millions of dollars. We want to make sure that it doesn't happen again. We asked that there be an audit trial right through the whole process from when the horse arrives at the airport till it gets to Eastern Creek or any other quarantine centre. What protocols were breached at Eastern Creek? The thing we really want to know is how did it get out, why was someone negligent, and why did we have to suffer like we did because of someone's negligence, and what are they going to do about it in the future?

Mick O'Regan: Now for people who've only been following this through the media, can you give a glimpse of the nature of the inquiry? Did Tony Meagher, the counsel assisting the inquiry, go through on particular days minute by minute, action by action, name by name?

Peter V'Landys: Look there were a lot of witnesses called and there was a lot of evidence taken, and I think that Mr Callinan certainly got a very good graph of what was going on. And as I say, the important thing for us was that they had to look at the situation from the airport to Eastern Creek and what happened, and who was responsible, and I'm hoping that this report identifies the people responsible, but more importantly, it also provides a future where stricter protocols are put in place and to ensure that it doesn't occur again.

Mick O'Regan: Now during the course of the inquiry, we got snippets of information that there were arguments about the fragmented management structure of the quarantine service, that there was an argument that senior bureaucrats were blasé about the risk dealing with live horse importation, and that there was a failure to regularly audit quarantine procedures. Were they things that the racing industry had been aware of and concerned about, or did all this come as new information once the inquiry was established?

Peter V'Landys: Look there was some information we were aware of, but we didn't even ourselves appreciate the level of complacency that went into the quarantine centre, and the blasé attitude taken. And realistically, the risk management there was atrocious, to say the least. But I don't want to pre-empt Mr Callinan's report, but the evidence to me showed that there were some serious breaches I protocols, and nothing less than a disgraceful complacency, which put all of the livestock in Australia at risk, because we were very lucky that it was equine influenza and not something more serious, like foot and mouth disease, or bird flu or anything like that. Unfortunately, it was only to horses it was fatal to, and nobody else. So I guess it was a wake-up call that we needed to have.

Mick O'Regan: Is it possible Peter, to exemplify just one incident of where negligence in your opinion led to the outbreak?

Peter V'Landys: Look I think the fact that people could go in and out of Eastern Creek without the proper security and the proper bio-security, there's a lot of things that were said at the inquiry, it would be too hard for me to go through all of them, but as I said, there are protocols and unfortunately those protocols were breached, and there wasn't sufficient bio-security measures in place, and I don't want to pre-empt Mr Callinan's report but I think he will find that there were serious breaches in protocols at Eastern Creek and there were some particular people responsible. I'm hoping he's made some pretty harsh recommendations to make it much harder for those protocols to be breached than what they were before E.I. hit.

Mick O'Regan: Right. To turn to the financial issues that arise from the outbreak of equine influenza, now people are no doubt aware that the government has been paying financial assistance. Where people qualified because of loss of income, because of the outbreak of the disease, there has been a process, a procedure to be followed, and people have been compensated to some degree. The big end of money is obviously to do with racing and thoroughbred breeding, but particularly racing. Is it possible give a general figure of the financial impact of E.I. on your industry?

Peter V'Landys: Our early estimations indicate that it could be up to $1-billion in lost income and additional expenses. That's how much it's cost us. The government gave for all horse industries $235-million assistance. It went a long way; I think without that assistance, the New South Wales thoroughbred industry would have contracted dramatically. We wouldn't have the same level of participation, it would have seen a lot of people broke and suffering financial hardship. The money certainly went a long way in avoiding, and it just shows, because once we recommenced racing, our field sizes were 10-plus. If we didn't have that financial assistance, when we recommenced racing we probably would have had one or two horses, because there was no incentive for any personal owner or trainer to have a horse in work, knowing they couldn't compete.

Because why pay $80, $90 a day to have a horse trained, if it had no opportunity to earn prize money because there were no races being conducted. What the government gave us was a payment towards the cost of keeping the cost in work; what that allowed us to do was to keep all the staff on, all the workforce stayed in place, and once E.I. was over, the horses, because they at the peak fitness, could recommence racing. So in essence I think the government made a smart economic investment, because we pay $1-billion a year in taxes, and if the racing industry took three or four months after E.I. had finished, to recommence again, the government would have lost just as much money as what we would have.

Mick O'Regan: Indeed. Now I saw a quote of yours where you, in reference to the previous Agriculture Minister, Peter McGauran in the Howard government, you praised him and said, that 'the Minister had responded quickly and generously' to the crisis faced by your industry because of E.I. There's obviously now a new Federal Agriculture Minister, Tony Burke; do you expect any commitments made by the Howard government Minister to be honoured by the Rudd government Minister?

Peter V'Landys: Oh absolutely. I mean we met with Tony Burke and I was very pleased at meeting him; he's a very competent Minister. We expressed our concerns, he listened, and that's all we can ask for at this point in time. But we certainly highlighted the fact that they can't expect the racing industry, or any horse industry for that matter, to pay for the eradication of the disease. It's like a fireman coming and setting fire to your house, and then charging you to put the fire out. We were victims like anybody else; it wasn't our negligence that it got through to the community and through to the thoroughbred code, so why should we have to pay to eradicate the disease? And we're hoping that commitment that was made by Peter McGauran, but if the Callinan Report showed that the government was negligent, and the quarantine areas were negligent, that they would pick up the bill, and we certainly highlighted that Mr Burke and he listened, and I'm very confident that we'll have a favourable response.

Mick O'Regan: What about the prospect of a class action if people within your industry aren't satisfied with the compensation package?

Peter V'Landys: Look we said from the outset that we reserved our rights on compensation. That the financial assistance wasn't going to cover what we lost. Now that's up to individuals at this point in time. We will certainly study the Callinan Inquiry and up until we get that report, we reserve our right.

Mick O'Regan: Just finally, Australia's reputation at a horseracing nation, you know, that the calibre of our major events, our Group 1 horses and the events they run in, has that been systemically damaged by this outbreak?

Peter V'Landys: Not really, because unfortunately in every other jurisdiction in the world, the major racing jurisdictions with the exception I think of New Zealand Iceland, they're the only two jurisdictions that have never had E.I. So it's pretty endemic throughout the other racing jurisdictions around the world, and that's why we're asking for ongoing vaccination as a risk management policy, and that's another matter we discussed with Tony Burke. Unfortunately the bureaucrats are against ongoing vaccination, but I can say categorically that if it wasn't for vaccinating during E.I., we would still be in E.I. now, because it was spreading like a bushfire. It's the same bureaucrats, unfortunately, that weren't going to allow vaccination to eradicate the disease, that now don't want to have a risk management policy in the future.

There was a similar situation some years ago with the sheep, where they refused to vaccinate. The disease spread for 2-1/2 years before they put the white flag up and started vaccination. There's no doubt in my mind that what stopped E.I. in Australia was the fact that we were able to vaccinate and have buffer areas, vaccinate the competitive horses that were travelling around, and that stopped the disease. Without vaccination I think we would still be fighting E.I. right now and I believe it would have went straight through New South Wales, into Victoria and probably would have shut the Victorian racing industry as well.

Mick O'Regan: So a root and branch change to some of the policies governing vaccination and also the sort of bio-security policies that are involved in quarantine. That's what you're advocating?

Peter V'Landys: Absolutely. And we want a risk management policy. As I said, every other jurisdiction around the world has a risk management policy in having ongoing vaccination. That's what we have requested. We will be holding a summit regarding vaccinations in June that Mr Burke will host, to hear all the arguments, and we hope from there on we can put our argument forward and have an ongoing vaccination program.

Mick O'Regan: Peter V'Landys, thank you very much for speaking to The Sports Factor.

Peter V'Landys: My pleasure, Mick.

Mick O'Regan: Peter V'Landys, the Chief Executive of Racing New South Wales.

Now the thoroughbred breeding industry is the other major player in the debate over what should be done to prevent a repeat of the equine influenza crisis.

John Messara is the Chairman of the Australian Thoroughbred Breeders Association and he joins me now. Welcome to The Sports Factor, John.

John Messara: Good morning.

Mick O'Regan: Are you satisfied with the Callinan process?

John Messara: I think so. We're all waiting for his findings now to come down, and I think he's gone through a very full inquiry, there's been a lot of evidence taken, and no reason to expect that we won't get proper findings.

Mick O'Regan: What have the restrictions over the past six or eight months meant for the thoroughbred industry?

John Messara: Enormous disruption. As far as the breeding industry is concerned, it meant that we had to start the breeding season, which generally starts in September, somewhat later, and that meant lower fertility for the season, which of course means low income in years to come. We expect there'll be between 5% and 10% less foals born out of this crop than the previous year. Now that'll mean hundreds of millions potentially in years to come. So it's quite a crippling blow.

Mick O'Regan: Now is that thing, the reduction in the number of foals that have been born, is that a specific point where the thoroughbred breeding industry might want specific compensation?

John Messara: Well I mean we haven't got to that yet, because we're all waiting to see what the findings of Justice Callinan are going to say. But there are some that are agitating for that. That's the most tangible of the future losses that have been caused by E.I. In addition to that, a lot of small breeders were disadvantaged by having their stock stuck in one place and not being able to be moved back to their own farms, because there were zones, of course, during the breeding season and those zones meant that you couldn't freely move out of one and into the other. And that's caused severe cashflow difficulties for smaller breeders. So there's a number of different losses that were incurred during the season.

Mick O'Regan: We've just heard Peter V'Landys, the Chief Executive Officer of Racing New South Wales, talking about a risk management strategy; is that one that the thoroughbred breeders would endorse?

John Messara: Absolutely. We're at one with Peter on this, and we hope to attend the summit ourselves in June, and lobby very strongly for ongoing vaccination. This is something that's been embraced in every other international country that's had E.I. and we don't see any reason why we shouldn't embrace it in Australia.

Mick O'Regan: Right. And should it become compulsory?

John Messara: I think it should be compulsory for probably the thoroughbred and performing horses sectors, because these are the most mobile part of the equine population, and that's the sort of model that's undertaken in the UK and other places. And then hobby horses, riding horses of course, owners can have their horses vaccinated at their choice. But I think the professional horse side of the business should be vaccinated, yes.

Mick O'Regan: That's interesting John. Thank you very much for being on The Sports Factor this morning.

John Messara: Thank you.

Mick O'Regan: The Chairman of the Thoroughbred Breeders Association, John Messara.

Finally, let's turn to sporting horses, those ones that do that amazing dressage, or jump over fences all the time.

With the Beijing Games just a little more than 12 weeks away, how have our elite equestrian competitors fared with the equine influence crisis? And what do they want from the implementation of any recommendations of the Callinan Report?

Franz Venhaus is in charge of the Equestrian Federation of Australia, and I asked him whether the key issue was finding out who was at fault, or receiving adequate financial compensation.

Franz Venhaus: No, it's important in both areas actually. Firstly, as far as compensation is concerned, we as a Federation are not looking for compensation but many of our members will. And I believe that a number of them have joined class action, or are preparing to join class action for their particular matters. The Federation, the impact in financial terms on the Federation is yet to be determined, and it may not be that great. The long-term effect may be much greater in terms of loss of participation in the sport.

Mick O'Regan: How developed is that class action, do you know?

Franz Venhaus: Well I believe, I can't think of the lawyers firm, it doesn't really matter, but I believe he's well prepared, and everyone is waiting for what the Commission is going to say, whether the Commission can actually clearly establish a fault rather than show that the systems that were supposed to be working did not work, remains to be seen, because we haven't seen the report.

Mick O'Regan: Right. And for people involved in equestrian sport and people bringing in and taking out horses I suppose, how would they calculate the cost of the shutdown? Where did it really bite, as far as the equestrian industry is concerned?

Franz Venhaus: Everyone involved in the industry was affected by it, because events simply stopped right around Australia, except for W.A., and I'm talking from the high performance part now, certainly there was no competition from August until April basically that involved true interstate competition or interstate competitors.

Mick O'Regan: And these are 3-day events, dressage, the sort of equestrian events people would be familiar with at the Olympics?

Franz Venhaus: Yes indeed. And of course we've got the Olympics in 100 days and we've lost more than half a year of preparation that we hope we can now make up. The government has been good in giving us additional funding to help us make up the loss in preparation but whether that will do the trick is a different story. The best way to pay that back obviously would be with medals, but that remains to be seen, again.

Mick O'Regan: What about the qualification of riders? Because I know riders and their horses have to qualify for events in Beijing and they have to meet criteria judged on specific events that lead up to the Games. Now you've just explained that some of those events in Australia had to be shut down; what were the results then for Australian riders seeking to qualify?

Franz Venhaus: Well a number of them would not have had the chance actually to show what they can do. And those who are still left in the field of contenders, let me give you one example, Shane Rose for example in New South Wales, he has two chances to actually qualify. At an event two weeks ago here in Sydney his horse had a minor injury and did not pass the veterinary inspection before the show-jumping, after the cross-country, so he's only got one chance left now to qualify, and that's in Melbourne at the beginning of June. Now if the Equine Influenza outbreak had not happened, he would have had several chances to get his qualification and now it's basically compressed into two and one, he missed out due to very unfortunate circumstances.

Mick O'Regan: So it's hit or miss for him?

Franz Venhaus: Exactly, yes.

Mick O'Regan: But that's not something that can be compensated for is it?

Franz Venhaus: I doubt it. How can you put a value on that? It's the people who have been losing money because they made their living from the industry either through breeding, through providing services like the farriers, vets, saddlery shops etc. etc., they're the big losers. Then there are many other people who would have been affected by it, but you cannot really put a figure on it.

Mick O'Regan: Have many people left the industry, left equestrian sports because they simply couldn't make a dollar?

Franz Venhaus: Well we don't know as yet. I'm not aware of anyone totally pulling out, I know that a number of stores have had difficulties because their turnover dropped by up to 50% for a period of time. Then what we are finding now is we've got a very erratic level of entries in our competitions. Some classes seem to be over-subscribed, and others are very much under-subscribed, and we haven't quite figured out yet what the causes of that are. So we are certainly fearing, certainly at the lower levels, people leaving the sport for other sports.

Mick O'Regan: Earlier in the program Franz, we spoke to Peter V'Landys, the Chief Executive of Racing New South Wales, and one of the points he made towards the end of his interview was the centrality of vaccination, that the ongoing vaccination program really was the thing between utter disaster and getting the racing industry in some quick shape to resume. I noticed on the website of your organisation, you actually offered people visiting your website a choice: you ran a poll between different options, whether to continue the current containment policy, that plus vaccination, or introduce permanent compulsory vaccination, and I was intrigued by that almost half, 46.9% of people who cast a vote, so to speak, actually thought that continuing the current containment policy was OK. Did that surprise you?

Franz Venhaus: No, because introducing vaccination on a permanent basis has got a number of drawbacks that many people don't realise. There's actually going to be a workshop in the middle of June, of all the stakeholders in the industry, in Sydney.

Mick O'Regan: As we've heard.

Franz Venhaus: Yes. And the main topic will be vaccination. I realise that the racing or the thoroughbred industry in particular, is pushing for permanent vaccination. Our constituency is probably fairly evenly divided and at the lower levels probably are more against vaccination simply because it places an additional annual burden on them.

Mick O'Regan: Does it make horses vulnerable to side effects? Are there implications of vaccination that while it provides a safety mechanism I suppose, is it also dangerous in other circumstances?

Franz Venhaus: I don't believe so, and as far as the safety mechanism is concerned, it doesn't stop a horse from contracting equine influenza, it simply makes the effects of equine influenza less noticeable and certainly makes it more comfortable for the horse.

Mick O'Regan: Now we've also heard earlier in the program Franz, that I think Iceland and New Zealand are the only constituencies that aren't vulnerable to E.I. Is the new reality that Equine Influenza is now part of the equestrian scene in Australia, that whatever we had before is now gone, and that we have to basically see this as an ongoing problem? Or will we arrive at a point where we are declared utterly E.I. free?

Franz Venhaus: Most of our foreign competitors actually come from New Zealand, and very rarely do we get competitors from the Northern Hemisphere. And last year would have been one of those occasions when the Japanese team was going to come from Germany actually. So we are looking for an easy interchange of horses and riders between New Zealand and Australia. Now if Australia is not declared disease-free, that will not happen, and we will be faced with our current situation where New Zealand horses will be forced into pre-export and post-arrival quarantine and they will simply not come any more.

Mick O'Regan: Right. It just becomes too difficult and takes up too much time?

Franz Venhaus: Exactly, and too expensive, and we are just hoping as far as the recommendations are concerned coming out of the Callinan Inquiry, that there's going to be a reasonable approach towards these quarantine periods and towards other measures. We need to have it reasonable because otherwise our international competition is going to be seriously affected.

Mick O'Regan: Franz Venhaus, the Chief Executive Officer of the Equestrian Federation of Australia.

And that's where The Sports Factor rides off into the ether.

Thanks to Andrew Davies for producing the show, and to Jim Ussher for technical production, and of course as always, thanks to Sabrina Lipovic in ABC Radio Archives.

Guests

Peter V'Landys
Chief Executive Officer of Racing New South Wales.

Adrianne Bowden
Horse-Breeder.

John Messara
Chairman of the Australian Thoroughbred Breeders Association.

Franz Venhaus
CEO of the Australian Equestrian Federation.

Presenter

Mick O'Regan

Producer

Andrew Davies